73 research outputs found
A Cautionary Note on Cosmological Magnetic Fields
This note is concerned with potentially misleading concepts in the treatment
of cosmological magnetic fields by magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) modelling. It is
not a criticism of MHD itself but rather a cautionary comment on the validity
of its use in cosmology. Now that cosmological data are greatly improved
compared with a few decades ago, and even better data are imminent, it makes
sense to revisit original modelling assumptions and examine critically their
shortcomings in respect of modern science. Specifically this article argues
that ideal MHD is a poor approximation around recombination, since it
inherently restricts evolutionary timescales, and is often misapplied in the
existing literature.Comment: 5 page
Reconciling LCROSS and Orbital Neutron Water Abundance Estimates in Cabeus Crater
The Lunar Prospector Neutron Spectrometer (LPNS) first revealed Cabeus crater (84.9 deg S, 35.5degW) as having the highest inferred hydrogen on the Moon. Because of the broad LPNS footprint (approximately 40 km FWHM), the apparent peak water-equivalent hydrogen (WEH) concentration is only approximately 0.25 wt%, but could be much higher in smaller areas than the spectrometer footprint. Earlier image reconstruction work suggested that areas within permanent shadow have abundances approximately 1 wt% WEH. However, the LCROSS impact yielded total water estimates, ice plus vapor, of between 3 and 10 wt%. The large disagreement between LCROSS and apparent orbital values imply that either the ice is buried, by perhaps as much as 50 to 100 cm; or the ice distribution within Cabeus is spatially inhomogeneous, or both. Modeling reveals that the areal extent of a "shallow permafrost zone" is far greater than the area of permanent shadow. Ice can be virtually stable for billions of years within a few tens of centimeters of the surface in these areas. However, the LCROSS impact took place in an area of permanent shadow. If stably-trapped volatiles can be found in locales that receive occasional, oblique sunlight, landed missions may target these sites and eventual resource exploitation may be done more easily. Are orbital neutron data consistent with areally-extensive, volatile-rich cold traps? Orbital epithermal neutron data over the northern half of Cabeus (near the LCROSS impact site) are consistent with 0.2 wt% WEH or less in the "permafrost zone" near the crater. On the other hand, pixon reconstructions that confine the hydrogen enhancements to permanent shadow result in higher abundance estimates -- around 1 wt% if homogeneously mixed. But if the PSR abundance is increased to 10 wt%, consistent with the sum of all H-bearing compounds seen by LCROSS, a much larger-than-observed reduction in neutron count rate would be seen from orbit. It is likely that volatiles are inhomogeneously distributed, due to both impact processes and emplacement history. Two possibilities may bring consistency to the orbital and LCROSS measurements. Inhomogeneous lateral distribution: Consider the extreme case of a bimodal distribution within the crater -- dry and wet. In this case the epithermal leakage flux seen from orbit is a mixture of two different values, weighted according to fractional areas. Two possible outcomes, depending on whether the inferred leakage flux for the PSR or "permafrost" areas are considered. In the first case, approximately 40% of the PSR may be "wet", the remainder dry (and LCROSS was slightly lucky). However, if the whole area of permafrost is considered, then as little as 20% of the area will be as "wet" as the LCROSS results (and LCROSS was quite lucky). Inhomogeneous depth distribution: The leakage flux of thermal and epithermal neutrons depends on depth of burial of an icy layer beneath dry ferroan anorthosite soil (FAn). For the Cabeus PSR, the pixon reconstruction values for the epithermal flux allows a range of abundance and burial depth, while that of the thermal+epi detector constrains this range. (Uncertainties in iron abundance in the FAn can have significant impact on thermal neutron leakage flux estimates.) Between 20% and 40% of the Cabeus floor may be "wet", or alternatively a 5-10 wt% "wet" layer exists between 50 and 100 cm beneath a layer of dry regolith within the PSR. But volatile abundances of 5 wt% or more, distributed uniformly and homogeneously throughout the Cabeus PSR do not agree with orbital measurement
Gridmapping the northern plains of Mars: Geomorphological, Radar and Water-Equivalent Hydrogen results from Arcadia Plantia
A project of mapping ice-related landforms was undertaken to understand the role of sub-surface ice in the northern plains. This work is the first continuous regional mapping from CTX (“ConTeXt Camera”, 6 m/pixel; Malin et al., 2007) imagery in Arcadia Planitia along a strip 300 km across stretching from 30°N to 80°N centred on the 170° West line of longitude. The distribution and morphotypes of these landforms were used to understand the permafrost cryolithology. The mantled and textured signatures occur almost ubiquitously between 35° N and 78° N and have a positive spatial correlation with inferred ice stability based on thermal modelling, neutron spectroscopy and radar data. The degradational features into the LDM (Latitude Dependent Mantle) include pits, scallops and 100 m polygons and provide supporting evidence for sub-surface ice and volatile loss between 35-70° N in Arcadia with the mantle between 70-78° N appearing much more intact. Pitted terrain appears to be much more pervasive in Arcadia than in Acidalia and Utopia suggesting that the Arcadia study area had more wide-spread near-surface sub-surface ice, and thus was more susceptible to pitting, or that the ice was less well-buried by sediments. Correlations with ice stability models suggest that lack of pits north of 65-70° N could indicate a relatively young age (~1Ma), however this could also be explained through regional variations in degradation rates. The deposition of the LDM is consistent with an airfall hypothesis however there appears to be substantial evidence for fluvial processes in southern Arcadia with older, underlying processes being equally dominant with the LDM and degradation thereof in shaping the landscape
Bortezomib plus melphalan and prednisone in elderly untreated patients with multiple myeloma: updated time-to-events results and prognostic factors for time to progression
New treatment options offering enhanced activity in elderly, newly diagnosed patients with multiple
myeloma are required. One strategy is to combine melphalan and prednisone with novel agents.
We previously reported an 89% response rate, including 32% complete responses and 11% near
complete responses, in our phase 1/2 study of bortezomib plus melphalan and prednisone (VMP)
in 60 newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients with a median age of 75 years. Here, we report
updated time-to-events data and the impact of poor prognosis factors on outcome
The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
This paper describes the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
(SDSS), marking the completion of the original goals of the SDSS and the end of
the phase known as SDSS-II. It includes 11663 deg^2 of imaging data, with most
of the roughly 2000 deg^2 increment over the previous data release lying in
regions of low Galactic latitude. The catalog contains five-band photometry for
357 million distinct objects. The survey also includes repeat photometry over
250 deg^2 along the Celestial Equator in the Southern Galactic Cap. A
coaddition of these data goes roughly two magnitudes fainter than the main
survey. The spectroscopy is now complete over a contiguous area of 7500 deg^2
in the Northern Galactic Cap, closing the gap that was present in previous data
releases. There are over 1.6 million spectra in total, including 930,000
galaxies, 120,000 quasars, and 460,000 stars. The data release includes
improved stellar photometry at low Galactic latitude. The astrometry has all
been recalibrated with the second version of the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog
(UCAC-2), reducing the rms statistical errors at the bright end to 45
milli-arcseconds per coordinate. A systematic error in bright galaxy photometr
is less severe than previously reported for the majority of galaxies. Finally,
we describe a series of improvements to the spectroscopic reductions, including
better flat-fielding and improved wavelength calibration at the blue end,
better processing of objects with extremely strong narrow emission lines, and
an improved determination of stellar metallicities. (Abridged)Comment: 20 pages, 10 embedded figures. Accepted to ApJS after minor
correction
Peculiar Velocities into the Next Generation: Cosmological Parameters From Large Surveys without Bias from Nonlinear Structure
We investigate methods to best estimate the normalisation of the mass density
fluctuation power spectrum (sigma_8) using peculiar velocity data from a survey
like the Six degree Field Galaxy Velocity Survey (6dFGSv). We focus on two
potential problems (i) biases from nonlinear growth of structure and (ii) the
large number of velocities in the survey. Simulations of LambdaCDM-like models
are used to test the methods. We calculate the likelihood from a full
covariance matrix of velocities averaged in grid cells. This simultaneously
reduces the number of data points and smooths out nonlinearities which tend to
dominate on small scales. We show how the averaging can be taken into account
in the predictions in a practical way, and show the effect of the choice of
cell size. We find that a cell size can be chosen that significantly reduces
the nonlinearities without significantly increasing the error bars on
cosmological parameters. We compare our results with those from a principal
components analysis following Watkins et al (2002) and Feldman et al (2003) to
select a set of optimal moments constructed from linear combinations of the
peculiar velocities that are least sensitive to the nonlinear scales. We
conclude that averaging in grid cells performs equally well. We find that for a
survey such as 6dFGSv we can estimate sigma_8 with less than 3% bias from
nonlinearities. The expected error on sigma_8 after marginalising over Omega_m
is approximately 16 percent.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 12 pages, 5 figures. V2 Discussion
clarified, 1 figure added, improvements to the text and figures; V3 Figure 5
Plotting error corrected, SN1a contours smalle
DistribuciĂł i abundĂ ncia de larves de tĂşnids al mar Balear en relaciĂł a estructures hidrogrĂ fiques de mesoescala
Immune status of high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma patients and its therapeutic modulation under LenDex: a longitudinal analysis
Persistence of chemoresistant minimal residual disease (MRD) plasma cells (PCs) is associated with inferior survival in multiple myeloma (MM). Thus, characterization of the minor MRD subclone may represent a unique model to understand chemoresistance, but to our knowledge, the phenotypic and genetic features of the MRD subclone have never been investigated. Here, we compared the antigenic profile of MRD vs diagnostic clonal PCs in 40 elderly MM patients enrolled in the GEM2010MAS65 study and showed that the MRD subclone is enriched in cells overexpressing integrins (CD11a/CD11c/CD29/CD49d/CD49e), chemokine receptors (CXCR4), and adhesion molecules (CD44/CD54). Genetic profiling of MRD vs diagnostic PCs was performed in 12 patients; 3 of them showed identical copy number alterations (CNAs), in another 3 cases, MRD clonal PCs displayed all genetic alterations detected at diagnosis plus additional CNAs that emerged at the MRD stage, whereas in the remaining 6 patients, there were CNAs present at diagnosis that were undetectable in MRD clonal PCs, but also a selected number of genetic alterations that became apparent only at the MRD stage. The MRD subclone showed significant downregulation of genes related to protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum, as well as novel deregulated genes such as ALCAM that is prognostically relevant in MM and may identify chemoresistant PCs in vitro. Altogether, our results suggest that therapy-induced clonal selection could be already present at the MRD stage, where chemoresistant PCs show a singular phenotypic signature that may result from the persistence of clones with different genetic and gene expression profiles. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT01237249
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